When America's Greatest Detective took on America's Greatest Crime:
Ellis Parker and the Lindbergh
kidnappingThis is the story told in Master Detective, of Ellis Parker, America's
Sherlock Holmes. After a brilliant 40 year career as a detective, and
dissatisfied with the conclusions of the New Jersey State Police, Parker did his
own investigation of the Lindbergh kidnapping and obtained a signed confession
from a suspect different than the man who was executed for the crime! Parker's
reward? He was sent to jail, where he died. Could he have been right? Did this
country detective find the real solution to America's most notorious
crime?

Programs and
Presentations

Here are summaries
of my programs and presentations. I have given these presentations at the Law
Enforcement Executive Program of the New Jersey State Association of Chiefs of
Police, the Johns Hopkins Police Executive Leadership Program, the Deadly Ink
Mystery Writers Conference, the Mt Holly, New Jersey Courthouse, and to various
community groups, book clubs and similar organizations. One presentation was
taped for local TV.

The programs are from 30 minutes to an hour
in length, including questions and answers. If you represent a group or
association that would be interested in one of these presentations,
given free of charge, please contact me at johnrbooks@yahoo.com.

In Search of the American Sherlock Holmes: Tracking down the facts behind Master
DetectiveWhat does it take to solve an historical
mystery? How do you unravel a 70 year old cold case? This is the exciting,
and often strange stor of the research that went into reconstructing
the story of Ellis Parker and his involvement in the Lindbergh Kidnapping case.
The trail includes a mayor who was a safecracker, an attorney who once
defended the Boston Strangler, a retired naval officer whose mother had secrets,
some juvenile delinquents, and a box of old newspapers found in an
attic. (Note: An abbreviated version of this
presentation can be combined with the previous one.)

Improving
on Reality: Writing Creative Non-fiction or Fiction Based on Real Life People
and Events

This session will tell you the five things you
MUST do, five things you MUST NOT do, and the one most Improving important predictor of
success.

What is involved in writing non-fiction? How
is it different from fiction and what are some of the things to look out for?
For anyone who wants to write non-fiction, as well as those who have
not touched non-fiction since their last high school book report, John
Reisinger will help make it all clear. He will cover the ins and outs of this
demanding, but rewarding brand of writing including selecting a topic,
researching, organizing, selling and promoting it. If you have an idea for a
non-fiction work, but aren't sure just how to go about it, this is for
you.

The Roaring
20s: High Times and Low Crimes

Were the Roaring 20s really glamorous like The Great
Gatsby, an endless round of flappers, speakeasies and jazz? And were gangsters
the only ones committing crimes?

John Reisinger, author of the Max Hurlock Roaring 20s
Mysteries will show you how Prohibition caused more drinking than ever, and why
the era was considered the Golden Age of mysteries. He's discuss some of the
sensational real-life crimes that inspired the Max Hurlock Roaring 20s
Mysteries.

So grab your raccoon coat, ankle on down and take a load
off while you visit the Jazz Age.It will be the bee's knees!

The Secrets Behind the
StructuresAll over the world, from the Great Wall of China to
Cinderella's Castle at Disney World are famous structures that have a bizarre
and colorful history few know about. Former structural engineer John Reisinger
will let you in on some of the little known stories behind some well known
structures, including the real reason for the tower on top of the Empire State
Building, why you can not see the Great Wall of China from the moon, how
the French contrived to keep Hitler from having his picture taken
atop the Eiffel Tower, why the Hoover Dam contains miles of water pipes,
how a courageous architect saved Chartes Cathedral from destruction, why the
London Bridge tourist attraction in Arizona is not the real one, and how
balloons were used to lay out the construction of Disney
WOrld.

The Chesapeake Bay Bridge(s) : The Inside
Story

Did you ever wonder

-Why is the Bay Bridge curved at one end? There's
a reason.

-Why did they only build two lanes on the first
bridge? There's a reason.

-Why do the two bridges look so different? There's
a reason.

-And who the heck is William Preston Lane, Jr.,
anyway? There's an answer.Former engineer John Reisinger will tell the whole
twisted story of the poltics, the history, the economics, and, oh yes, the
practical reasons for how the bridges came to be, and how they wound up the way
they are today.

No DNA? No
Problem!: Real life crimes solved by smart detectives
and unusual methodsWith so many CSI programs on TV, many
people think solving a crime is simply a matter of matching up DNA samples, but
this presentation looks at other, simpler methods that have yielded big dividends
in real cases. Detectives in these cases used. psychology, metalurgy, botany,
local knowledge, and plain old shoe leather to get their man. Hear
how a college professor solved the last great western train robbery with a microscope and
a pair of dirty overalls, how police tried to use photography to
track Jack the Ripper, how a killer was caught with a
coffee stain, and how a botanist trapped a murderer with some weeds.

Rooms
of Doom: Real-Life Locked Room MysteriesEver since Edgar Allan Poe Murders in the Rue Morgue, just
about every fictional detective has encountered an impossible crime in which a
corpse is discovered in a locked and sealed room. Locked room mysteries make for
entertaining reading, but do they ever happen in real life? Elementary; they
do. Here are some locked room crimes that bedeviled police. Some were
solved, but some were not. In one case, the victim was a mystery author!

Writing is the Easy Part: Getting published in spite of
everythingMany writers worry about where their work is
coming from when they should be asking where is it going. What is really
involved in getting your work published? Are publishers just itching to grab
your masterpiece or will you meet with a collective yawn? For local author
John Reisinger it took five years and three broken contracts before Master
Detective saw the light of day. Hear the exciting story of the slush pile, the
publisher who went to jail, the agent who was looking for a Pulitzer Prize
winner, the mysteries of the query letter, and all the ways a work can get
rejected. Learn what to do and what not to.

Engineering: What is it and why should you care?Engineering
is using scientific principles and ingenuity to make the world a better place. But
that's just the beginning. Find out why the towers of the Verazzano Narrows
bridge are not parallel, how engineering designed the Skipjack, why there are miles of
pipes buried in the concrete of Hoover Dam, why structures in the
Arctic need ventilation below them, how a huge lump of concrete helps the
Knapp's Narrows bridge be the busiest drawbridge in America, why there is no
Outer Harbor Tunnel in Baltimore, and how engineers used balloons to bring
telephone service to an African nation.

Deathstyles of the Rich and Famous:Three prominent men whose deaths are still
unsolvedThe classic mysteries of the 1920s, 1930s and 1940s
often featured a rich man killed in an isolated setting among a host of
suspicious characters, but that never really happened, did it? Actually, it
did. Here are three real life wealthy and prominant men of that period who died
mysteriously. One was killed at his Hollywood bungalow, one on an ocean liner,
and one at his tropical estate. No one was convicted in any of these cases. You
can't make up plots like these! Hear the stories and follow the clues. It might
not be too late to crack these cases.